


Decompression

by kerravon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerravon/pseuds/kerravon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Grace Under Pressure" did not have a satisfactory conclusion  - there were too many too many loose ends left dangling.  Originally only meant to cover the steps needed to avoid 'the bends', plot happened.  Suddenly there is blame, angst, and ultimately the discovery of the ACTUAL cause of the shuttle crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decompression

Decompression

By Kerr Avon

"How much time?" demanded Sheppard, hands flying over the start-up sequence before the hatch had even finished closing.

Zelenka, after casting a quick concerned glance at the still-standing figure of McKay, scooted into the seat he had vacated only minutes previously. He grimaced as a trickle of cold water ran down his back from where the other scientist's arm had been draped across his shoulders, and his fingers scurried across the laptop's keyboard, pulling up the requested figures. "Ten minutes, tops. We need to get above 1,000 feet as soon as possible, before the shield fails."

The statement caught the attention of their injured passenger, who turned glazed eyes in the direction of the cockpit. "Fails?" he squeaked in alarm, then gazed at some horror only he could see and muttered, "No, no, no…been there, done that…..no, no, no…" He staggered towards his rescuers, running a trembling hand through his dripping hair. "Not again…I can't…"

Leaving Sheppard to the business of getting them moving, Zelenka shot to the injured scientist's side. Forcing himself to ignore the chilling damp, he slid an arm around the taller man, levering him onto one of the side couches. "Don't worry, Rodney. LTC Sheppard's taking care of it." Even as he spoke, he could feel the Jumper lift off the ocean floor and begin its hasty ascent.

"Tha's good." Glassy eyes sought the Czech's. "Sumthin' else…" He started silently snapping his fingers as he stared into the distance. "Had it a minute ago…" He folded his arms and unconsciously began scratching them, an action interrupted by a violent shiver.

Radek's brows creased, but his tone was reassuring. "Don't worry about it, Rodney. We'll be back to Atlantis in no time." Reaching for a nearby pack, he began pulling out blankets. "You're soaking wet and hypothermic; we need to get you out of those clothes and into something dry."

McKay didn't move, still staring off distractedly, so Zelenka hesitantly reached up and started to tug at his jacket. When the expected explosion wasn't forthcoming, he began to wrangle the unresisting man out of his jacket, then his shirt, finally holding the dripping garments up in disgust before letting them fall heavily to the floor.

Rodney's eyes blankly followed the soggy descent, then lit up in alarm. He fixed Radek with a stare, "There was water coming in! I had to slow the leak or I'd drown."

"Yes, Rodney, but you didn't drown. You're fine." Zelenka began briskly rubbing his torso down with a dry blanket.

"No, no, I'm not." He began breathing in short, rapid gasps. "I had to slow the leak," he reiterated, then started rubbing his arms. "Owww…"

"Yes, we know." Radek concentrated on getting the water off the too-cold man, and answered by rote. "You did fi…" The engineer's head jerked up as a sudden thought occurred, and he stared intensely into McKay's befuddled, pain-ridden face. "Wait a minute. You said something about needing decompression as we hauled you out of Jumper 6."

"Carter had me increase the pressure to slow the leak. There were micro-fissures all along the bulkhead…" His arms moved to wrap around his abdomen as he tried to curl into himself. "I don't feel so good…"

Dismissing the reference to Carter as a result of his obvious concussion, Zelenka grabbed McKay by both shoulders to stop his rambling. "Rodney, this is important. How high did you raise the pressure in that compartment?"

Something in the desperation of his tone caught their pilot's attention, because Sheppard called over his shoulder, "Hey, is everything all right back there?" as he navigated upwards.

"I am trying to determine that, Colonel," replied Zelenka. When McKay didn't answer, he shook his shoulders, "Come on, Rodney, stay with me. How high?"

McKay blinked and gulped nervously. "As high as the shuttle would let me before the failsafe kicked in. A couple of atmospheres, maybe?" His voice terminated in an anxious squeak as he began to hyperventilate.

Radek cursed under his breath in Czech as Rodney tried to slow his breathing. "Stay here." Zelenka wrapped a blanket firmly around the shivering McKay, then bolted to the forward section. Diving for his laptop, he cursorily explained, "We need to increase the pressure in here, now." Fingers skittered across the controls at the panel next to his chair.

"I thought you said the shield would hold for ten minutes!" Sheppard shot him an incredulous glance, misunderstanding the problem.

"Of course it will, that is not the issue. In fact, we are nearly at a depth that we can turn it off." A hiss of air in the compartment was followed by the scientist holding his nose and forcibly popping his ears. Sheppard opened his mouth in a pseudo-yawn to achieve the same result. "McKay had to increase the cabin pressure in Jumper 6 to slow a leak; he was probably at that increased pressure for at least thirty, perhaps sixty minutes…"

John's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "You mean he's got the bends?"

Zelenka nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose as he stared at the computer screen. "Yes, yes. He needs decompression chamber. Right now, this will be decompression chamber." He gestured expansively with his right arm to encompass the jumper.

"Is it safe to surface, or will we be in danger of exploding from the pressure gradient?"

Zelenka stared at the pilot dumbfounded.

"What? I know a few technical terms," John spat defensively. "Helicopter pilot licenses don't come in Cracker Jack boxes."

Radek blinked rapidly, then shook his head. "I have already considered that. The vessel won't allow the pressure to rise that high."

"Will it allow the pressure to rise high enough for him, or do we need to descend again?" He jerked a thumb back at their passenger, who was now laying sideways on the couch and moaning incoherently.

Radek pursed his lips grimly. "It will have to do. We don't have the power to descend a second time."

"I'll get Beckett on the line, shall I?" Sheppard reached for the communications console.

"And I will see to McKay." So saying, Zelenka headed back to their companion.

Rodney's eyes had closed and his face had taken on an unhealthy ashen color, as his body was wracked with tremors. His arms were still tightly clutched around his abdomen, and the blanket had partially fallen off, exposing a bare shoulder. Radek pursed his lips and picked up the loose corner, tucking it firmly around the upper half of the semiconscious form. Next, Zelenka proceeded to wrestle him out of the rest of his sodden clothing. The pants and underwear soon joined the shirt and jacket on the floor, as a second blanket was used to first dry off, then cocoon the injured astrophysicist.

"Atlantis, this is Jumper One, do you read?"

"Jumper One, this is Atlantis. What is your status?" Weir's static-filled voice was anxious, but professional.

"We've got McKay, but Griffin…didn't make it."

John could hear the regret in his commander's voice as she replied simply, "I see."

"Uh, could you put Beckett on for a minute? Rodney's somewhat worse for the wear, and we could use a little medical advice." Sheppard kept his tone intentionally level.

"Beckett here. What's his status, Colonel?" With the speed of reply, Sheppard figured that the man must have been standing right at Weir's side, waiting.

"There's a couple of things. First, he's got a head injury; it's not bleeding badly, but he seems sorta confused." Sheppard kept an eye on the monitors, continuing to ascend.

"We already knew that he was unconscious for an hour, so it's a good bet that he has a concussion. I can deal with that when you get here. What else?"

"Well, there was apparently a water leak after the jumper hit bottom, so he was partially immersed in cold seawater for some time."

"Hypothermia, then. What else?" John could visualize the physician mentally cataloging the equipment he was going to need when he met the Jumper.

"To slow the leak, he increased the pressure in the cabin to as high as the system would allow. He was probably at that pressure for thirty minutes to an hour."

"Damn!" Beckett compressed a world of frustration into the single word. "Dive tables don't even go up that high." He took a deep breath as his mind whirled through alternative treatments and discarded them. "First you need to pressurize Jumper One as much as possible."

"Already done. Next?"

"Well, do you have any auxiliary oxygen?"

Sheppard's backwards glance was met with a nod from Zelenka, who was already moving towards the tank they had loaded onboard prior to takeoff. "Yes."

"Put him on a non-rebreathing mask if possible; the higher the partial pressure of oxygen, the better."

The ambient light outside the ship began to increase, indicating that they were finally nearing the surface. Sheppard kept one eye on his monitors as he watched Zelenka comply with Beckett's orders. McKay's face began to regain some color, but he was still only partially conscious, and tried to push the mask off several times. Despite the seriousness of the situation, John smiled at Radek's firm, "Rodney, leave it alone."

"OK, Doc, what's next?"

There was a pause and a sigh, before the Scottish burr resumed, "That's about all we can do for the decompression illness. Get some water into him if you can manage it. May I assume you've gotten him as dry and warm as possible?"

"We've got him dry and wrapped in blankets…" Sheppard began, when he was suddenly interrupted by the engineer cursing aloud and jumping back to the environmental control console.

"I can increase the heat in the Jumper as well," Radek spat in disgusted explanation as he made the appropriate adjustments. He all but slapped himself in the forehead for missing something so obvious.

"Good lad!" confirmed Beckett. "How long until you can get him here?"

"We're just about to break the surface," replied the pilot, "So maybe another 20 minutes at full speed?"

"I'll meet you in the Jumper Bay, after I get some supplies together."

"How are you going to get on board, with us at increased pressure?"

The Scotsman was wry. "I dinna know, yet, but I'll think o' something. Beckett out."

"Out here." Sheppard's mind was already at work on the logistics of getting the doctor and patient into the same room.

"Gonna….sick…" groaned McKay, rousing slightly and pulling off his oxygen mask.

Zelenka looked frantically around, snatching up McKay's wet jacket and making it into an impromptu bucket just in time to catch the meager contents of Rodney's stomach. Holding his head as he vomited, Radek made soothing noises while being certain that everything went into the jacket. When the scientist finally finished, Zelenka carefully folded up the impromptu airsick bag so it wouldn't leak and moved it to the far side of the chamber. Returning to their patient, he opened his canteen and poured half a cup for Rodney.

"Here, drink this. You'll feel better."

McKay squinted open his left eye and stared at the smaller man, apparently disappointed about something. Then, levering himself tentatively onto his elbow, he took the cup with trembling hands and sipped from it gratefully. Zelenka kept one hand carefully on the vessel's bottom as Rodney's grip was none-too-steady, and took it back from him when he finished. McKay sighed and allowed himself to lie down again on his side.

"Here, you need this," said the engineer as he replaced the oxygen mask. Rodney, once more barely conscious, made no attempt to remove it this time.

Zelenka cast an anxious glance at Sheppard, who answered the unspoken question, "Almost there."  
\------------

"Ringers, IV tubing, catheters, tape, O2, urinals, foley, first aid kit, exam kit, bandages, blankets, fresh water, defibrillator…" Beckett went over the supply cart one last time as Jumper One eased into its berth in the Jumper Bay. Turning to his nurse, he instructed, "Conservatively, we'll probably need to be in there almost 24 hours, and there will reasonably only be room for one person. Still, if my idea works, I want a portable toilet set up right outside the rear hatch, and some screens around it for privacy. Also, that's where I'll have you leave any supplies we might want. Make sure someone is monitoring my frequency at all times in case I need you."

The nurse nodded efficiently as Sheppard's voice came over the radio. "Hey, doc, we're here. So how do we get you on board without blowing off the back hatch?"

Beckett keyed his mike. "As I understand it, Colonel, Dr. Zelenka has modified the Jumper's cloak to be a shield?"

"Yeah, but it can drain a lot of power."

"Still, what if you were hooked up to the recharge station?" 

Sheppard had a quick consultation with Zelenka before replying, "That would work, as long as Atlantis' power holds out."

Beckett chuckled grimly. "Could you pressurize the area outside the ship within the shield to the same pressure as inside the ship?"

Beckett could practically hear the lightbulb go on. "So, you stand outside our back hatch, we establish the shield, pressurize the area under the shield to an equilibrium, then open the hatch. Neat."

"I can modify an external exhaust vent to transmit the pressure," Zelenka piped up. "And we can turn off the shield once you're on board. 'Thin it' slowly, so that the pressure doesn't explode outwards…." He trailed off, mumbling, as he set to work.

Beckett moved his supplies over to the hatch and stood waiting. His patience was rewarded; in just a few moments an electronic hum materialized, followed shortly thereafter by a hissing sound. 'Good lad!' he thought again. Moments later the hatch cracked open, and Beckett began to move forward. Before he had taken two steps, however, Zelenka appeared holding a wadded jacket at arm's length. Walking determinedly past the physician, he grimaced and set it down near the edge of the field. Carson had caught a whiff as it went by, and could guess the contents. Without a word he headed into the Jumper.

Kneeling by the drowsing scientist, he did a quick initial assessment. 'Color - pale, but mottled; heart rate - 110; respiratory rate - 20 and shallow; BP 98/42.' Auscultation revealed good breath sounds bilaterally, and no muffling of the heart tones. 'Rule out pneumothorax, rule out pericardial tamponade…is dehydrated, though. Water, water, everywhere…'

Breaking out a bag of IV fluids and spiking it, he handed it to a hovering Sheppard. "Hang this from something sturdy, would you?" he asked, as he turned to access the vein. It took three tries to do so successfully, and his worry increased as he heard no complaints from his normally-recalcitrant patient. He taped it securely in place, then dialed it wide open.

"So?" asked Sheppard, as Zelenka shifted nervously from foot-to-foot just behind him.

"I'll know more in a minute," replied the physician. 'Time for damage assessment.' Taking off the crude bandage from McKay's forehead, he whistled at the bruising underneath. The laceration was fairly shallow, and wouldn't need stitches, but it certainly did need to be cleaned. Still, that could wait. He gently palpated the area for step-offs or irregularities that might indicate a skull fracture, and sighed mentally in relief when he found none.

"Rodney? Can you hear me?", he asked, assessing the astrophysicist's mental status. "Come on, Rodney, open your eyes."

McKay moaned, then mumbled, "Go 'way…"

Beckett smiled. 'Well, at least it's an appropriate verbal response…' "Come on, Doctor McKay." Beckett became stern. "I need you to cooperate with me here."

His statement was met with a protesting moan, but nothing else.

Breaking out the bottle of Betadyne, he decided to kill two birds with one stone. Liberally dousing a gauze pad with the antiseptic, he began to clean the wound he'd just examined.

McKay's eyes flew open and his hand unsuccessfully grasped at Beckett's wrist. "Ow! That hurts!" He blinked up at the doctor. "Carson. What are you doing here?" He glanced around the compartment. "Where'd Sam go?"

"I'm trying to examine you and clean this up," Beckett replied matter-of-fact. 'OK, eye opening to pain - 2; localizes pain - 5; confused conversation -4; total Glasgow Coma Scale - 11….not good, but not as bad as it could be.'

"Sam who?" asked Sheppard, confused. "Was that Griffin's first name?"

McKay shot him an irritated glare. "How should I know?"

Zelenka piped up in explanation, "I think he's referring to Dr. Samantha Carter. I believe he hallucinated her presence after his head injury."

Beckett's eyebrows shot to his hairline as he turned back to his patient. "Really?"

McKay lowered his gaze defensively. "Yes…but I'm not crazy!"

Beckett was confused. "I never thought ye were. But this is important; when did you first see her? Right after you woke up?"

McKay started to sit up, but was halted by Beckett's gentle hand on his chest. "No." He gulped twice to quell the resurgence of nausea that the attempted movement had awoken. "It was…not too long after I dialed up the CO2 scrubbers." His head was throbbing, and he found it difficult to concentrate.

"And why'd ye do that?" queried Carson.

"Because I was suffering from hypoxia! I was laughing hysterically at things that weren't funny…"

Beckett snorted. "Leave the medical diagnoses to the experts, Rodney. You were suffering from nitrogen narcosis, not hypoxia. Symptoms include giddiness, impaired judgment and coordination, exhilaration, extreme anxiety, depression, and paranoia. Often people have very pleasant…even erotic…hallucinations. Sound familiar?"

Despite the pounding in his head, McKay managed to blush. 

Sheppard grinned crookedly and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Erotic, huh? Anything you want to share with the class?"

McKay sent him a disgusted glare, but didn't deign to reply. Beckett merely chortled and poured a little more iodine solution on a clean pad. "I'll bet it really got interesting after you dialed up the pressure…"

"Well, as a matter of fact…Owww! What are you trying to do, take my skin off?"

"Lay still, and I'll be done in a minute." He continued his gentle cleaning until he was satisfied, then placed a fresh bandage. "Now then, since you're awake, I'll need to be asking you some questions."

McKay squinted at him suspiciously from his position on his side, but grunted assent. 

Palpating first his neck, then the remainder of the spine, Beckett inquired, "Does any of this hurt?"

McKay's eyes darted to the side as if looking for the correct answer. "No, not really?" he finally hazarded.

Beckett smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, lad, there are no right or wrong replies. It's important that you're honest with me, though."

"Oh."

"So nothing hurts along your back or your neck?"

"No…but my head is killing me."

"Not a surprise. Once I get through my exam, I'll give you something to help. Right now, though, painkillers might mask something more important." He sighed. "Much as I hate to 'clinically clear' your spine, it seems to be OK. Now, I want you to take your time and roll over onto your back."

McKay grimaced, but tried to do as he was told. "Ohhh, everything aches…" he moaned.

Carson winced in sympathy, but proceeded with his examination. He discovered a number of contusions and ecchymoses, but no evidence of intra-abdominal injury or long-bone fracture. An oral temperature was only 96.9 F, so he was still hypothermic, but not to a threatening degree. Beckett finally sat back and smiled.

"Well, good. Nothing we didn't already know about." Turning to his supply cart, he extricated a set of warm sweats, socks, and a woolen cap. Turning to the other two hovering men, he held up the garments as he asked, "Would you gentlemen mind helping…."

"I can do it. I've been dressing myself since I was two!" McKay huffed, reaching for the clothing. That was a mistake. As soon as he tried to sit up his head began throbbing to the point that his vision momentarily clouded over. Groaning, he put a hand to his forehead and collapsed back on the couch.

Merely raising an eyebrow, Beckett asked, "Gentlemen?"

Between the three of them they soon had the scientist swaddled in warm, comfortable clothes and covered by fresh blankets. Checking the IV, Beckett dialed it down to a lower rate, then replaced the oxygen mask. "Now I'll give you something for your head," Beckett commented, digging out a vial from his kit. He deftly drew up the narcotic and slipped it into the IV. Within moments McKay felt the pain recede to a dull roar.

Sluggish from both the head injury and the drug, he found himself drifting into a comfortable doze. He felt Beckett check his blood pressure again just before he fell asleep.

\------------------------------------  
"Rodney, come on. Wakey, wakey!"

McKay's eyes wrenched open, an action he immediately regretted as the pounding in his head resumed with a vengeance. Shielding his face from the flashlight and squinting his eyes shut, he groaned, "Must you?" The Jumper was mostly dark, illuminated only by the light that filtered in through the windshield. Clearly several hours had passed since Beckett's initial evaluation, and gentle snoring betrayed the location of the other two shuttle occupants.

Sheppard grinned crookedly. "Yeah, I must. My shift. Time for your every-two-hour 'Carson Quiz'. If you answer all the questions correctly, you get to go back to sleep until Radek takes over!"

"Fine. Whatever." McKay inhaled slowly to quell his residual nausea. Still, he noted with satisfaction, the pain in his joints and abdomen seemed to have resolved. 

"Question number one; what is your name?" Sheppard assumed a corny British accent.

McKay sighed. The vague memory of similar questioning tickled his memory, and he suspected that this was going to go on periodically all night. "Rodney McKay."

"Next: what is your quest?"

McKay cracked open one eye in surprise. "You're kidding, right?"

"Just seeing if you were paying attention. Actually, the next question is, 'Do you know where you are?'"

"In a parked Jumper on Atlantis that's been jury-rigged as a hyperbaric chamber with a little guy in my head wielding a sledgehammer to get out."

Sheppard grinned wider. "Sarcasm… good. Now how about the date?"

McKay quirked up a corner of his mouth. "Earth-calendar or Atlantean calendar?"

Sheppard resumed the cornball accent. With fake confusion, he replied, "I don't know…AHHhhhhh", and pantomimed being thrown over a cliff by an invisible force.

Even Rodney had to chuckle at that one. "You know, I wouldn't have taken you for a 'Monty Python' fan. 'Three Stooges', maybe…"

"Hey, Curly was king!"

"I was more of a 'Moe' man, myself." His eyes slid closed of their own volition. "Can I go back to sleep now?" he whined.

"Sure. Until Zelenka wakes you two hours from now." Rodney didn't need to look to know that the man was smirking, so he let himself nod off.

 

_"Hey, you want to play Reenactment?", asked Joey languidly. It was sweltering July day, the kind of heat that even insects found oppressive. The two boys lay motionless under the shade of an old oak tree out in Joey's backyard, but they were still drenched in sweat. Rodney hated being dumped at his Grandma's for the summer; he and Jeanne didn't know anybody, and not many kids their age lived nearby. To think that he had actually been relieved to discover a boy only a year or two older had moved into the ramshackle house at the end of the block, next to the junkyard. OK, admittedly the kid was a little odd; pale skin, dark hair and eyes, always wearing too much black with chains hanging off the belt of his tattered jeans. Still, he could carry on a decent conversation and was more intelligent than most of Rodney's schoolyear acquaintances. While Joey's taste tended toward classic literature rather than hard science, at least he could understand what Rodney was talking about, and often suggested books that the younger lad would check out of the local library and subsequently devour._

_"What's 'Reenactment'?" asked McKay, curiosity piqued. He turned his head to look at his friend, to find almost-black eyes staring back at him with disconcerting intensity for an eleven-year-old. Rodney gulped nervously but didn't retract the question._

_Apparently satisfied by something, Joey turned to stare up at the tree branches again, hands laced behind his head. "You play 'Cowboys and Indians' when you were little?"_

_"Sure!" Rodney hadn't, actually, but it seemed important not to let Joey know that most other kids preferred to beat him up rather than play games._

_"It's like that, only with characters out of a book. You pick a favorite story or author, then we take turns playing different people. Grown-ups do that for famous battles and stuff."_

_Rodney was secretly excited that Joey wanted to teach him a new game; their friendship had been a little shaky for a few days. McKay had accidentally insulted the darker boy and then kept making things worse as he tried to apologize. It had gotten to the point that Rodney was afraid Joey might never speak to him again, when suddenly this morning the other kid had appeared on his doorstep as if all were forgotten. McKay didn't want to damage their tenuous truce by refusing his pal anything. If playing some weird game kept him from being alone all summer, so be it._

_"Why not?" he shrugged, sitting up. "But you'll have to teach me the ropes at first."_

_Joey grinned ferally, and Rodney suppressed the warning quiver in his gut. "Be glad to," answered Joey, who was on his feet in a heartbeat, offering a hand to the pudgier child. "I found a great place to play over in the dump; we could do anything there!"_

_He sauntered off cloaked in his 'too cool for school' attitude. Rodney, being almost half-a-head shorter, had to jog to keep up. Within minutes they were deep in the middle of the junkyard, surrounded by piles and piles of discarded refuse that stretched well over their heads. Joey clearly knew exactly where he was going, for he didn't slow up at all. As they neared their apparent destination, he began to nonchalantly discuss the game._

_"Most people aren't smart enough for this; it's hard to stay in character, especially if you haven't read the book."_

_"So what novel did you have in mind?" Rodney panted, frantically hoping that it was one he had read; otherwise he'd have to try and bluff his way through._

_Joey halted in front of a particularly huge junkpile, then turned, hands on hips. "Here we are." He gestured at a large opening that was half obscured by other refuse; McKay bent over to get a better look. "Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a short story for starters, until you get the hang of it."_

_"OK," replied Rodney distractedly. "What story?" The doorway opened into a shady, dark, square room of sorts; once a large, industrial wooden crate, Joey had clearly tried making it more appealing. A smaller crate had been set inside as a table, and there were two boxes to serve as chairs. On the table were a couple of cans of Coke, as well as a Snickers bar. Venturing into the blessed shade, McKay became aware of the sweat dripping down his back and sat heavily on one of the boxes and opened a Coke._

_"I was thinking something by Edgar Allen Poe."_

_Rodney glanced up to note that his friend was still standing out in the heat. The wolfish grin from earlier had returned full force, and gave the older boy's face an evil aspect. Rodney felt his stomach do flip-flops, but he swallowed nervously and hazarded, "Oh yeah? Which one?"_

_His query was greeted by the slamming of a previously-unnoticed lid to the crate in his face and the sound of a board being jammed firmly against the outer latch. Black eyes glinted in at him through the cracks in the wooden slats as he replied, "Oh, I thought I'd be Montressor and you could be Fortunato." Maniacal chuckling was followed by the sound of debris being piled against the outer door._

_Rodney jumped up in alarm and threw himself against the now-closed entrance. "What are you doing?" he screamed, panic-stricken. The wood shuddered slightly, but held. "What sort of 'game' is this?"_

_Joey's laughter took on a hysterical timbre. "Come on, genius. Surely a rich boy like you has read 'The Cask of Amontillado'?"_

_McKay broke into a cold sweat. Unfortunately he had read the horror story, and it had rendered him several sleepless nights. He staggered back from the weight of the words. "You can't mean …" he whispered, his mouth suddenly dry._

_The eyes that peered inside sparked with anger. "This'll teach you not to make fun of somebody just because they're poor." The face disappeared to the sound of more obscuring detritus being added._

_Rodney's heart fluttered in his chest as he screamed, "I told you I was sorry! That wasn't what I meant, anyway!"_

_"You'll be sorry, all right," hissed the older boy, as he placed one last object in front of his previous peephole. "Yell all you want; no one will hear you back here." The last statement was followed by the sound of fading footsteps, then silence._

_McKay's eyes became saucers as he realized he was alone. Unlike Fortunato, there were cracks in his prison that let in both light and air, but were far too small to escape through. Panicked, he tried to calm himself by carefully examining his surroundings. The crate appeared to be made of thick wooden slats, enclosing a cube roughly eight feet in each direction. Metal bands reinforced it externally, and it was more than 3/4 covered with other refuse. He forced himself to carefully test the strength of each board as he tried not to recall the fate of Montressor's victim. When he had checked all the slats that he could easily reach, he piled the crates and boxes on top of each other to reach higher._

_Two hours later, he sat cross-legged on the floor in defeat. He stared blankly at the ceiling of his apparent coffin and whispered, "My God. I've been buried alive…" Tears streaked unbidden down his grimy face until he was so exhausted that he curled up into a ball and slipped into a fitful doze. From a great distance he could hear someone calling his name, but he couldn't summon the energy to answer._

"Rodney! Wake up! You're having a nightmare." Zelenka's hand was on his shoulder, shaking vigorously. 

McKay's eyes snapped open as he took in a sobbing gasp. "What, where…?" he asked in confusion. He focused on the Czech scientist, and his eyes narrowed as memories flooded his brain.

Zelenka stared back owlishly as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "No, no," he corrected. "That is my line. I am supposed to ask you if you know who you are, where you are, and what day is it?"

"Rodney McKay," the injured man spat. "Decompressing in a Jumper after being rescued from a coffin on the bottom of the ocean."

Radek shook his head in disagreement. "No, no. You were in Jumper, not coffin."

"A Jumper that you repaired! Functionally, it was my coffin," Rodney lashed out. He was still reeling from his dream, or more accurately, memory. Funny, he hadn't thought about that whack-job kid for years. Needless to say, Joey had returned several hours later and laughingly released him, but not before Rodney had acquired a healthy dislike for enclosed spaces. The rest of that summer was spent assiduously avoiding the maniac; the next year found Joey's family having moved to parts unknown, much to Rodney's relief. 

Zelenka recoiled from the accusation, wringing his hands at a loss for words. "Yes…well…"

McKay's temples pounded as his blood pressure rose, but he kept his voice low so as not to awaken the other two occupants of the hyperbaric chamber. "Well, what? Did you or did you not beg me to test your newly-repaired Jumper, which promptly crashed into the ocean and sank?"

Radek seemed to curl into himself as Rodney's furious accusations struck home. Staring intently at his own twisting hands, he mumbled, "I did figure out how to rescue you…"

"And that makes it all better?!?" McKay hissed, the epitome of self-righteousness. 

Zelenka raised his eyes to meet Rodney's, "I also came on the rescue team."

Rodney's tone became sarcastic, "And I suppose Sheppard had nothing to do with 'convincing' you? Or was it Weir?"

The Czech's gaze dropped to his lap again, and his hands stilled. "Both, actually…" he finally admitted.

McKay's eyes slitted. "I thought as much," he spat, then lay down facing the bulkhead. Zelenka stared at his friend's stiff back for a few minutes, then rose and shuffled quietly away with slumped shoulders.

John Sheppard, ostensibly dozing in a sleeping bag nearby, thoughtfully watched the form retreat into the darkness.

\-----------------------------------------------

 

"Come on, Rodney, time to wake up." The low-pitched Scottish voice was accompanied by an equally-gentle hand on his shoulder.

McKay groaned and tried to roll away. "Leave me alone. Look, if I were going to die of an intracranial hemorrhage, I would have done so already."

Carson couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice. "I agree."

McKay rolled back and squinted open an eye. "You do? Then why are you waking me up?"

"Ride's here. Time to go." Beckett gestured behind himself, where Rodney now noticed a gurney and two medics.

Rodney thought about sitting up, but decided against it. Right now his head, while pounding, felt like it might actually stay attached to his body, and he didn't want to upset the fragile truce. "Decompression's over?"

The physician chuckled, "Obviously. Sheppard and Zelenka are already off to debrief Weir."

Carson's turn of phrase brought up pun-ny images that Rodney promptly squelched, deciding that your average twelve-year old might go there, but he wouldn't. He was distracted from that train of thought by the doctor's next question.

"So how are you feeling? Up to climbing onto the stretcher, or would you rather we move you?"

McKay took stock of his body. The first thing he noticed was that he was blessedly warm and dry. Further evaluation showed that his muscle aches had mostly resolved with the decompression, but he felt stiff. Still, it was no worse than the aftermath of his average trip through the Gate with Sheppard. His head throbbed abominably, but that was manageable. The nausea had vanished, and he was pleased to note that he was actually hungry.

"I…think I can move myself," he hazarded, and was rewarded by a smile from Beckett.

"Good man. Take it slowly, though; you've been through quite an ordeal."

McKay managed a withering glance that screamed, 'Well, duh. Ya' think?', before trying to sit up. Instantly he felt the physician's arm behind his shoulders, and between the two of them he managed it. Panting to catch his breath, he paused a moment to let the world stop whirling.

"All right?" asked Beckett simply. Another deep breath, and the scientist nodded. "OK, then, here we go."

It took the help of one of the orderlies as well, but Rodney was soon ensconced beneath a dozen blankets and was rolling to the medical bay. Once there, Carson insisted on CT scanning his head regardless of the fact that he had survived the night. Next was a complete spine series, chest x-ray, and bloodwork, by which time McKay was truly exhausted. He was dozing in the infirmary when Carson sauntered up, flipping through his chart.

"Well, not too bad at all," he commented, causing McKay to crack open one eye. The doctor's obvious lack of anxiety was reassuring, so he closed it again.

"So I'll live?" he inquired rhetorically.

With a snort, Carson patted his shoulder. "I'd say so. I'd like to keep you here for observation one more night, but tomorrow I expect you can go to your own quarters."

"Is the patient up for visitors?" interrupted a calm, feminine voice.

"Doctor Weir," acknowledged Beckett. "Yes, I'd say so, but only for a few minutes. If you will excuse me…" Carson took the opportunity to go check on another patient.

Rodney opened his eyes and squinted in the light. Cupping a hand over them, he smiled wanly at his commanding officer. "Hey, thanks for coming to see me."

"What happened out there?" Elizabeth was nothing if not direct.

McKay shook his head once, gingerly. "I'm not sure. We did fine to the Mainland; not a hitch. However, about halfway back the right drive pod started intermittently switching to reverse thrust. When I tried to take it off-line, the Jumper refused to recognize any of my commands. I accessed one of the side control panels for a more direct link, but we crashed before I had a chance to do anything."

"What about Griffin?" She left the question purposefully open-ended.

Rodney glanced down, brain flashing back to the accident. He looked up and met her eyes frankly. "Griffin was a hero. He stayed calm, got out a distress call, and ultimately sacrificed his life to save mine."

"What happened?"

"The windshield was giving way under the pressure of the water. We got into the rear compartment, but the bulkhead door control had been damaged in the crash. He closed it from the pilot's console just before the water rushed in." His voice cracked slightly. "His last words were, 'Good luck, Rodney'. Can you believe that?"

"Sounds like you would have both died otherwise." Weir was sympathetic.

"Yeah, but how…", he looked at her searchingly. "How does someone come to that decision? To give his life for someone he barely knows?"

Elizabeth laid her hand on his reassuringly. "I could say, 'He was trained to', or 'That's a soldier's job', but I won't insult your intelligence. I think you had it right at the beginning."

McKay was confused. "What?"

Weir gave him a sad smile. "He was a hero." Taking a deep breath, she patted the hand beneath hers and smiled wider. "And partly because he was, we have our Chief Scientist back. Get well soon, Rodney." With a nod of her head, she left the room.

McKay leaned back on the pillows, feeling vaguely better about something that he couldn't quite put a finger on. Finally he gave up trying and surrendered to sleep.

Two days later found him not only out of the infirmary, but vehemently back at work. His small residual headache resulted in his terrorizing several members of his department, even so far as Dr. Lindsey running to Heightmeyer in tears. Zelenka managed to absent himself from any involvement with his prickly superior, and in fact rarely showed his face outside his own lab. For his part, Rodney was still fuming at Radek's convincing him to test the shuttle in the first place, and was perfectly content with not seeing hide nor hair of the Czech scientist for the time being. Sheppard, however, was increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of interaction between the 'two smartest men' on Atlantis, and decided to look into the situation.

Standing at the door of Zelenka's lab, he silently studied its sole occupant. The slight man sat hunched over his laptop, chin in hand, staring morosely at the screen and intermittently typing in information or queries. Clearly not getting the answers he wanted, he slammed a fist down on the countertop, then ran trembling fingers through his hair. Sheppard suddenly felt as if he were eavesdropping, so he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

Zelenka responded as if to an electric shock, jerking around so fast that he almost fell off his stool.

"Woah, there. I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to see how you were doing." The LTC strolled nonchalantly into the lab, gazing around as non-threateningly as he could manage.

Radek sighed and turned back to his computer. "I am fine. I did not crash in a Jumper that sank to bottom of ocean. You should ask McKay."

John shrugged as he came up beside the engineer. "Nah, Rodney's on a rampage. Anyone with an ounce of sense is staying out of range." He tried to act interested in the laptop as he noted the dark circles beneath the other man's eyes and the fine lines of stress that accented his face. "So, I haven't seen you around much lately…what'cha up to?"

Zelenka slapped the screen in front of him in disgust. "I have been rerunning the pre-flight diagnostics on Jumper 6, trying to discover what went wrong. It is frustrating without having the actual crashed vehicle to work with."

Sheppard put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry about it. Accidents happen."

"If I do not discover what my mistake was, there is no way I can prevent it from happening again!" Radek spat, unmollified.

Sheppard pulled up a stool and sat down next to him. He studiously avoided looking directly at the scientist, so as not to intimidate the man. Instead he studied the screen in front of them as he asked, "What makes you so sure it was your mistake?"

"I was in charge of the repairs to that vessel; everything seemed fine with our tests here on Atlantis." His voice dropped until it was barely audible. "Clearly everything was not fine, and that is my responsibility."

There was one question that had been bothering Sheppard since the decompression chamber, and this seemed like as good a time as any to ask it. "So…if you repaired the Jumper, why did you ask Rodney to do the test-flight?"

"Mnnpfhh," came the mumbled reply as Radek wrapped his arms around himself as if to ward off a chill.

Sheppard hated to ask, but, "I'm sorry? I couldn't hear you…"

Zelenka glared at him defensively. "I am afraid of flying!" he enunciated clearly.

Sheppard was taken aback. "So, that was why…"

"I didn't want to go with you. Yes." He swung back to his computer and punched a few keys.

The pilot digested this information with some incredulity. It was always hard for him to believe that anyone could be afraid of flying, but he knew that those people existed. What amazed him was that he didn't know something so important about a key member of the base staff. Finally he managed, "Why didn't you tell somebody?"

"I did. I told Doctor McKay. That is how he ended up injured at the bottom of the sea." Zelenka stated this factually, as if quoting the time of day.

"But when Weir and I…" he began, but was cut off by the scientist turning to face him again and holding up a hand for silence.

"If I had not gone with you, would we have been in time to save Dr. McKay?"

Sheppard shrugged, "Probably not, but still…"

"My weakness endangered an important member of this base. If I had a chance to rectify that…" He spread his arms apart, "How could I not push my fears aside?"

Sheppard was suddenly very grateful that the skittish scientist was on Atlantis. "Well said. Still, it doesn't look like you're going to get anything accomplished here," he gestured to the laptop, "So why don't you call it a day? Get some sleep, and maybe a bite to eat." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Between you and me, if McKay keeps up his current behavior, someone's going to spike his coffee with lemon juice. I need you to be in top form so you can take over when that happens." He shot the dejected man a lopsided grin and slapped him on the shoulder as he stood up.

A ghost of a smile flashed across the other man's face, and he nodded. "Entirely possible. I shall take your advice." He stood as well, shutting down his laptop as he did so.

Sheppard was almost at the door when Zelenka softly called, "And Colonel?"

He turned expectantly.

Radek shrugged and smiled again. "Thank you for coming by."

Snorting, Sheppard gave a dismissive wave. "No problem. Like I said, no one with an ounce of sense is going anywhere near McKay, and I could have joined MENSA!" Grinning, he set off down the corridor. His smile widened as he heard Zelenka leave the lab and head towards the mess hall.

\-------------------------------------  
The alarm claxon blared as Sheppard raced up the stairs to central control to where Weir stood leaning on the balcony railing, her eyes glued to the Stargate. "What's up?" he panted.

"Major Lorne's team just called in; they're under attack," she replied without ever taking her gaze off the activated wormhole. As if to verify her statement, several energy blasts emerged though the Gate, followed by one very beat up Jumper.

"Activate the shield," she commanded as soon as it was clear. The sounds of several very large somethings hitting it made her grateful for the quick reflexes of the new man on the Gate console.

Staring at the pock-marked craft beginning to ascend through the ceiling, Sheppard began, "I'll just head to…"

"Go," she answered with a nod. "Beckett's team is already up there, just in case."

She didn't have to say it twice; he was off and running for the Jumper Bay.

By the time he got there, all four members of Lorne's contingent had disembarked and Beckett's outfit was giving them a once-over. Lorne grinned crookedly as he caught sight of the LTC. "Hey, Colonel! The natives on PX345D have become…less than friendly."

"I can see that," the CMO answered, scrutinizing the damage to the Jumper. Running his hand along a scorch mark, he encountered a gouge the size of his fist. Glancing up, he noticed that this appeared to be the least of the destruction. He gave a low, appreciative whistle. It was amazing the thing managed to make it into the Bay. He turned to his exhausted subordinate, and grinned. "Are you trying to make a career out of trashing Jumpers?"

Lorne chuckled grimly. "Looks that way, doesn't it? I hear Jumper 6 bought it on its shakedown after repairs."

"Yeah, and it almost took McKay with it," rejoined Sheppard.

Lorne grimaced sympathetically. "Oooh. Sorry to hear that."

Sheppard shrugged. "Oh, he's all right. Bad crash, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, but survived to terrorize another day."

They shared a chuckle, then Lorne excused himself to take quick shower before debriefing with Weir.

Sheppard whistled again as he further inspected the trashed Jumper. "Boy, the engineers are going to have a field day with this," was his conclusion. They couldn't afford to lose many more ships; they didn't have the capability to manufacture them, after all.

\-------------

"Nevertheless Rodney, you are not an engineer!" Zelenka waved his arms violently at his side as he made his point. After his talk with Sheppard he had regained some of his self-confidence, and even managed to argue with McKay when absolutely necessary.

When Dr. McKay had heard of another shuttle requiring repairs, he had dropped what he was doing and hightailed it down to the Jumper Bay, much to the relief of the entire physics department. Immediately upon arrival, he began to haughtily order the technicians to show him what they were doing, and began to inspect every centimeter of their work. Zelenka, who had been inside recalibrating the sensor array, heard the protests of his crew and emerged to see what was going on. Within moments the two scientists were engaged in a heated verbal battle, and all work ceased as the mechanics stopped to watch.

"No, I'm not. But we all know how well the engineering department performed last time, don't we?"

"Fine. You want waste your time peering over my shoulder, then go right ahead. I have the best team in this galaxy, and they do good work." He threw his hands up in disgust and started to walk away, oblivious to the appreciative glances of the aforementioned men who had been avidly following the argument.

"Well, somebody made a mistake, and I paid for it!" McKay was a man who liked to get in the last word.

Radek stopped dead in his tracks, dropped his head and clinched his fists as he counted to ten in Czech. Not trusting himself to turn around, he gritted out, "Do not worry on that account. I shall not ask you for any more favors."

As Zelenka continued on his way, Rodney resumed 'overseeing' the repairs to the Jumper. He even went as far as personally checking the tightness of the bolts after the techs had replaced a particular panel. By the end of the afternoon, tempers were flaring as the crewmen began to vent at each other, as they didn't dare snap at the real object of their frustration. Anyone who could leave the Bay did so the second their job was finished. At the end of the workday, Zelenka knew something had to be done, so he sought out Dr. Weir.

\----------------------------

"Please, you have to do something about McKay. He's driving my repair crew crazy!" 

They were both standing in her office with the door closed, to minimize the transmission of their conversation to no doubt curious ears outside. Weir folded her arms across her chest and asked reasonably, "Have you talked to Rodney about this?"

Radek ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yes, of course. But he believes my entire team is incompetent, and feels obliged to recheck every connection, every bolt, and every patch that we do."

"Well, he has been through some trauma recently…"

"I understand that, and I accept full responsibility for it. However, I won't have him treating my people as if they were…." he searched for the appropriate word, "…nincompoops!"

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "Are you certain that you aren't exaggerating just a little bit?"

"He berated Ensign Wells for almost thirty minutes about a speck of dirt she left on the windshield when she cleaned it. She left the Jumper Bay in tears, convinced that her 'inattention to detail' in window washing had directly caused Jumper 6 to crash."

Weir's eyebrow quirked up. "Really?" she asked.

Zelenka sighed and nodded, knowing that she finally understood the problem. "Yes, really. I'd wager that at least three people call in sick tomorrow just to avoid him."

Weir's lips thinned. "I'll have a talk with Rodney."

Radek smiled in relief. "Thank you, I appreciate it." He turned to go, then swung back around for one last comment. "They are a good crew, you know. I don't understand what caused McKay's crash, but it wasn't sloppiness on their part."

Elizabeth smiled back reassuringly. "I'll take care of it." She was secretly pleased with his defense of his men, even if he wouldn't defend himself.

\------------------------

Zelenka didn't know what Weir said to his irascible superior, but it seemed to do the trick. While still insisting on overseeing the repairs, Rodney ceased acting as if everybody in the room was incompetant. When McKay finally deemed the Jumper flight-worthy, Elizabeth called a meeting to discuss the test run. 

"Given the problems encountered with the last repaired Jumper, I'd like to take this one out myself," LTC Sheppard drawled. Seated at the conference table, he leaned back in his chair languidly and played with his pen.

"But given the fact that we still don't know what caused those problems, should the Chief Military Officer be the pilot of the next test flight? We can't afford to lose you, John." Weir was hesitant.

Sheppard leaned forward in sudden intensity. "That's why I have to go." He began to tick his points off on his fingers. "One: If Zelenka says it's fixed, then it's fixed. Two: Should something happen, then we need the best pilot on Atlantis at the helm, and that would be me. And finally," he fixed her with a fierce stare, "I would never send one of my men out to do a job that I wouldn't do. Just the fact that I was sending them rather than going myself could cause someone to make a mistake through sheer nerves."

Elizabeth held up a hand for silence and smiled slightly. "All right, all right, you've convinced me. Colonel Sheppard, you will pilot this test flight." She turned expectantly to McKay. "What scientist do you want to accompany him to run the diagnostics?"

McKay crossed his arms defiantly. "I'd like to say none…"

Sheppard smirked, "What, don't you trust your own repairs, McKay? Way to inspire my confidence."

"No, the repairs are fine. I oversaw them every step of the way." He gulped. "I guess I'm just a little nervous, what with…" he trailed off uncomfortably.

"Best thing to do is get right back on the horse," John had relaxed in his chair again, and spread his hands as he made the suggestion. Weir watched the interplay in silence, ready to step in when necessary.

Rodney looked thoughtful and waved an index finger in the air as he gazed into the distance. "Not necessarily a good analogy for me. When I was eight I was thrown by a horse and my father gave me the same advice. He had decided at some point that horse riding was a mandatory skill for a growing boy."

"So, what happened?" Sheppard asked.

McKay met his gaze. "I got back on. Within ten minutes the beast threw me again, but that time I broke my arm. By the time Dad finished paying for the medical bills, he decided that all kids didn't need to learn to ride a horse after all."

Sheppard snorted. "OK, someone expendable then." He sighed and shrugged. "I'll make the supreme sacrifice and take Kavanagh."

"I wouldn't trust him to be able to read the back of a cereal box, much less the results of a highly sophisticated diagnostic program." McKay crossed his arms.

Sheppard was open to suggestion. "Then who else?"

"I will fly with you." Zelenka had been silently staring at the table throughout the entire meeting, hands clasped rigidly in front of himself. Sheppard had almost forgotten that he was even in the room.

John fixed him with a curious look. "I thought that you were afraid of flying?"

"I did it to rescue Rodney. I can do it again. After all, Dr. McKay has personally guaranteed the repairs." 

The sarcasm was not lost on the other scientist, who angrily added, "Well, it's better than being certified by 'Doctor Davy Jones' over there!" He threw an arm in Zelenka's direction.

"Enough!" Weir stepped in before the fight could escalate. "We have our team. Colonel, you and Dr. Zelenka can proceed at your convenience."

Sheppard ignored the still-fuming Chief Scientist to address the Czech. "How soon can you be ready? I'd like to get this over with as soon as possible."

"Give me a few minutes to gather my equipment, then I'll meet you in the Jumper Bay."

"Very well then. Excused." Weir stood and began straightening her papers. As the group began to exit, she called out, "Rodney? A word."

McKay turned back like a schoolboy caught by the truant officer, and the door to the hallway closed on them. Sheppard turned to Zelenka and mused, "I wonder what that was all about?"

Radek shrugged. "I do not know. I will meet you in ten minutes." He skittered off down the corridor, intent on his mission.

Sheppard glance at his watch. If he hurried, he'd have time for a quick sandwich before he was due in the Jumper Bay. Thought into action, he headed for the mess hall.

\----------------

"See, this isn't so bad." John had intentionally made the flight as gentle and stress-free as possible for his pteromerhanophobic passenger. After cruising to the Mainland uneventfully, he decided that a nice, scenic trip up the coast might be just the thing to settle down the jumpy Czech. However, despite efforts to point out the beauties of nature that lay below them, Radek's complete concentration was focussed on his laptop as the diagnostic program ran its course.

"Say, this looks like the place I was thinking about surfing!" he exclaimed, trying to draw Zelenka into looking out the window.

"That is fine for you. Please, now, be quiet." He was apologetic, but stern. "I will be able to monitor our progress more efficiently if I am not distracted." 

The Jumper began to quiver. "Woah. What was that?" Sheppard's hands flew across his console, checking for updrafts, crosswinds, and any other of a number of external factors.

The quivering rapidly progressed to a full-out buffeting, as if the ship had been caught up in the storm from a few months previously. To Zelenka's credit, he didn't freeze up despite his worst nightmare coming true. Typing furiously at his keyboard, he diagnosed, "The right drive pod's intermittently switching to reverse thrust, just like Jumper 6!"

"Can you shut it down?" John was wrestling with the controls at this point to keep them aloft.

"It's not recognizing any of my commands," the engineer replied frantically, unaware that he was echoing McKay word for word. Tossing the laptop aside, he leapt to the side control console and furiously began rerouting the crystals.

"It's too late for that!" called back Sheppard. "Sit down and buckle up; we're going down!" He reached over and flipped on the automatic distress beacon rather than try to establish radio contact, directing all his attention to finding a nice, soft landing site.

Zelenka's eyes took on the appearance of a frightened deer as his glasses hovered on the end of his nose. "What?" he exclaimed. "Just a minute more!"

"We don't have…." The Jumper touched ground at that point, and talking became a luxury the pilot couldn't afford. Sheppard had started scrubbing off speed when he realized that a crash was unavoidable, and located a long, straight section of sandy beach to try and land on. He managed to put it down level, but the sudden change in velocity was too much for the inertial dampeners to compensate and they overloaded, throwing the Jumper's occupants around like rag dolls. Miraculously the vehicle managed to stay upright as it skidded to a halt, sloughing sideways slightly in the process. The two men were in no position to thank their luck; they were both unconscious from the impact.

\---------------------------------------------------  
"What do you mean, 'disappeared'?" Rodney lunged over the communication officer's shoulder and began poking at the board. His forehead sported a clean bandage, beneath which could be seen a livid, multicolored bruise.

"I mean, disappeared. As in 'gone', 'vanished', and 'missing'." The younger man managed to forcibly elbow McKay away from his instruments so he could take further readings.

"What seems to be the problem?" Doctor Weir suddenly materialized beside them.

The soldier became businesslike. "Ma'am. Colonel Sheppard's Jumper was flying up the coast of the mainland when suddenly we received a few seconds of an automated distress beacon, after which it disappeared from our sensors.” 

Elizabeth edged in to get a closer look. "Where was the dropout point?"

"Here, ma'am." The man pointed to the grid.

"Hmmm. That's pretty far from the settlement. Have you tried contacting them by radio?" She studied the map carefully.

"Yes, ma'am. No reply."

"Well, keep at it. And have Major Lorne report to my office." So saying, she walked that way herself, deep in thought.

McKay straggled after her like a confused puppy. "They can't have crashed. That repair job was perfect!"

She turned to face him. "Well, they dematerialized from our sensors after a brief distress call, just like you did. They can't be reached by radio, just like you. At that time Zelenka swore that the repair job was fine, just like you do now. What do you suppose happened if they didn't crash?"

Rodney stood gulping like a beached fish, for once at a loss for words. "I…I'm not sure…"

There was a knock on the doorframe. "You wanted to see me, Ma'am?" asked Major Lorne.

Turning her attention to the new arrival, she answered, "Yes, Major. It seems that Colonel Sheppard and Doctor Zelenka have gone missing; the control room can give you their last known coordinates."

Lorne's eyes widened in surprise. Recent events with the Gate made one ugly possibility immediately spring to mind. "Could it have been sabotage?"

McKay jerked up as he jumped on the concept. "Hey, that's right! Who's to say that there weren't two Goa'uld infiltrating this base?"

"That's just supposition. Right now, our priority is to rescue our people. Rodney, I want you to accompany Major Lorne to the mainland." Weir put a quick halt to the theorizing.

The scientist was outraged. "Me?!? Why me?"

"Because I want my best people on this, and you're the best. You say so yourself, regularly." As Weir continued, Lorne put a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. "Also, I want to minimize the number of personnel involved, just in case your suspicions are correct. It would be quite a…coincidence otherwise." She stared him in the eyes and brought out the big guns, "Zelenka was there for you; are you refusing to be there for him?"

Barely mollified, Rodney huffed, "All right, all right, I'll go. He just better appreciate it! I'm an injured man, you know."

Weir watched their retreating backs, murmuring, "He might be now, too."

\------------------------------

"Oh, my head. Now I know what Rodney felt like…" Sheppard groaned and put a hand to his face, encountering something wet and sticky. Pulling his hand down, he stared at the bright red uncomprehendingly for a moment before he realized it was blood. "Oh, great, I'm bleeding," he muttered in disgust. Carefully feeling around, he noticed a lump above his right eyebrow with what felt like a cut in its center.

His next thought was for the other occupant of the craft. "Hey, Doctor Z, are you all right?" he called out. Silence answered him, so he carefully maneuvered himself so he could examine the rest of the compartment. For an irrational moment he thought he was alone, until he noticed the crumpled pile of tan and blue against the far bulkhead. Standing slowly so he wouldn't pass out, John groaned, "Aw, nuts. You didn't strap in like I told you to."

The ship was sloped slightly towards the rear hatch and towards the right, but didn't shift as he made his way gingerly over to the limp form of the scientist, and gently shook his shoulder. "Radek, you in there?" When the other man didn't reply, he pursed his lips grimly and felt the Czech's neck for a pulse. The breath he was holding exploded out of him in relief when he felt the heartbeat bounding strongly against his fingertips.

"Whew. You had me going for a minute there. Ok, let's see what's wrong with you, shall we?" Carefully rolling his unconscious companion onto his back, he noticed a large lump on his forehead. His hand reflexively going to his own, he commented, "Well, matching injuries. We can have cots next to each other in the infirmary. At least yours isn't bleeding." He checked the body carefully for other injuries, but found only bumps and bruises. His right ankle seemed somewhat swollen, but didn't appear broken. Shrugging out of his own jacket, he folded it up as a makeshift pillow and tried to settle Radek in as comfortably as possible.

"OK, me next." Finding the first aid kit, he pulled out a metal mirror and examined his face. Blood was oozing out of a laceration just above his right eyebrow. He broke out some gauze and saline, and set about cleaning and dressing it. Once he was satisfied with the result, he set the kit aside. 

"Alright, next job is finding out what systems are still working." Making his way back to the pilot's seat, he eased himself down and started his assessment of their status. "Power, check. Communications, negative." He vaguely remembered activating the automatic distress beacon just before impact, so he checked to see if that was still operational. 

"Huh. That's not running either." His evaluation was interrupted by a groan behind him as Dr. Zelenka began to regain consciousness.

Moving back to the injured man, Sheppard knelt and tried shaking his shoulder again. "Hey Radek, you with me yet?"

The scientist mumbled something in Czech, then blinked open his eyes. Staring at the ceiling, he uttered a curse then commented dryly, "So we have crashed despite Dr. McKay's supervision?"

Startled, John chuckled, much to the dismay of his throbbing skull. "Yeah, I guess so. Are you all right?"

"I think so." Zelenka took mental inventory, and concluded, "Just a concussion." He began to look around the jumper, and his eyes widened fearfully. "Why is it so dim in here? We're not…sinking, are we?"

Sheppard dismissed the thought instantly, although he did have to admit that the ambient light was not what one might expect for midday. "Nah, the last thing I remember is plowing this sucker into a long stretch of beach. If we're in the water at all, our maximum depth is probably 12 inches." Standing, he held out a hand to help Zelenka to his feet. As he stood, Radek's face suddenly contorted in pain and he sat again heavily, grabbing his right ankle.

"Owwww…that hurts."

"Let me see." Sheppard pried Radek's hands away from his ankle and reexamined it. The swelling had increased quite a bit from his initial inspection, but it still didn't appear broken. "Just a bad sprain," he concluded. "I saw an Ace wrap in the medikit; we'll wrap you up until Beckett can get a look at it.

A few minutes later the ankle was wrapped. "Let's see how well you can stand, then." Using both hands, he helped the injured scientist to his feet.

Zelenka leaned heavily on the pilot for support, grimacing as he tried to put weight on the right foot.

"It is better, but…" he began.

"You can't walk on it. Let's get you up front where you can run a systems check, then I'll try to jury-rig a crutch out of something."

Zelenka nodded breathlessly, and the pair hobbled up the slope to the front of the craft.

Once they reached the front, Sheppard found himself trying to look outside. The part of the windshield he could see through showed vistas of clouds accumulating in a previously-blue sky. The windshield, however, was mostly covered in…something. Whatever it was, it was clearly small, granular, and piled up in apparent drifts, more on the right side than the left. The far right half of the windshield was completely obliterated, accounting for the lack of light. Staring at it intently, John began, "And that stuff is…?"

"Sand. Lots of sand." Zelenka sighed and looked vaguely ill as he felt behind himself for a seat.

The light went on for Sheppard. "Sure! When we plowed into the beach, we must have thrown up tons of the stuff! Huh; we must have canted sideways a little as well."

"That is unfortunate. Our external communication relay is on the right side of the ship. We will probably not be able to contact Atlantis." Zelenka sighed again and sat heavily as he found the copilot's chair.

"Well, I'm sure they'll be out looking for us pretty quickly. We just need to sit tight and see what systems we can get up and running." So saying, Sheppard resumed the pilot's seat.

Peering out the window, Radek concluded, "Depending upon how much sand is over us, this ship might be difficult to spot from the air."

"Nah, I don't think so. We must've left a trench a mile long! A straight line like that is sure to draw somebody's attention."

"Yes of course. You are right. Let me see what controls I can access." Retrieving his laptop from where it had landed against the front console, he was gratified to hear the Windows XP startup wave file as the machine booted up.

"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking," snorted Sheppard.

Zelenka looked up at him owlishly. "I am sorry? Is something ticking?"

"Didn't you ever see that series of Timex commercials?"

Zelenka stared blankly.

"You know the ads." Sheppard smiled deprecatingly. "They have this watch on a baseball bat, or in a vacuum cleaner, or on the wrist of a cliff-diver, after which they show the watch still working and say, 'takes a licking but keeps on ticking'."

Zelenka glanced at his wrist. "I am not wearing a watch?"

Sheppard sighed, rubbed his pounding temples, and turned his attention back to the control console. "Nevermind."

Zelenka shrugged and went to work. Silence fell inside the Jumper as they both concentrated on their task.

Outside, the waves washed over their path, obliterating it as if it had never been.

\---------------------------------  
"This is ridiculous. They can't be that hard to find." McKay vented his frustration by pounding the wall next to his terminal. This was the third pass over the target area, and so far, nothing. "Have you double-checked the coordinates?"

Lorne sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, doctor. And, before you ask again, I've double-checked with Atlantis as well."

They continued in silence until McKay tapped the computer in front of him. "Huh. That's interesting." He leaned towards the viewscreen to get a closer look at the data.

"Have you found something?" Lorne asked hopefully.

"Well, yes and no. Unfortunately it's not the shuttle, but it is useful." McKay tapped out a query and studied the responding data.

"So, are you going to let me in on it?" Lorne asked when it became obvious that Rodney had forgotten he was there.

McKay pushed a few more keys. "What? Oh, yes. This area of the mainland appears to be so rich in metallic iridium that it actually constitutes a fair proportion of the sand on the beach we're flying over. On Earth, it's exceedingly rare, while it's fairly common in meteorites. In fact, one of the reasons they postulate the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid is a thin layer of iridium found in the clay of that time period. It's very useful in electronics and manufacturing. In fact, this could be one reason the Ancients decided to settle on this world." 

"So what made you notice this now?" 

"Iridium is very dense, one of the densest of all metals. A sand composite with a high percentage of this metal would most assuredly conceal the Jumper from our sensors. However, as sand is constantly being sifted by the wind and the water, the heavier metallic bits sink several feet down on undisturbed beaches. This area here," he pointed to his screen, "must have been recently disturbed, throwing up enough iridium particles to stand out on our scans." McKay was at his best during expository.

"'Disturbed', you say?" An idea occurred to the Major. "Can we overlay the area you're talking about on a map of our search-zone?" At the thought, the Jumper started displaying graphics on the viewscreen.

"That's our crash site!" Lorne pointed at the diagram, where a nice, straight line over a mile long was highlighted. "At one end or the other we ought to find the Jumper."

"I can't believe we've flown over that three times." McKay said, staring intently at the screen.

"Well, a Jumper is too heavy to wash out to sea, right?"

"Yes, of course." McKay was huffy.

"Then it has to be there; we just can't see it from the air, and we can't detect it on our sensors." Lorne was convinced. "Why else would there be a mile long stretch of disturbed sand?"

"Could they have the cloak on?" McKay wondered.

"Who knows? Point is, we'll have to do a ground search of both ends of that area."

"Ground search? As in, walking?"

"Sure." The Major appeared confident. "There's plenty of room to land. We'll set down on one end of our 'disturbed sand' and check it out. If we don't find anything, we'll go the other way."

"I'm an injured man, remember." McKay touched his bandage. "Wouldn't it be better to call in more search parties?" 

"Don't forget, Weir wanted as few people as possible in on this. Let's check both sites out first. If we come up with nothing, we'll get teams in to turn over every grain of sand on this beach."

\------------------

Sheppard clambered up the slope to the cockpit, brushing his hands together to get rid of the dirt. "Well, that back hatch is well and truly jammed. How's it coming up here?"

Radek still sat in the copilot's chair typing furiously away at his laptop. His injured ankle was stretched out in front of him, propped up on a box of supplies, with a cold-pack wedged under the Ace wrap. He glanced up briefly at the pilot's statement before resuming his work. As he typed, he replied, "Well, the power's up, lights are on, CO2 scrubbers working, but I can't get the pods to initialize. From my readings, it appears as if something is jamming them externally. However, our scanners are only partially active, specifically in that direction." He pointed out the pilot's side of the front windshield, where the sky had become completely overcast.

"Whew," Sheppard plopped into his seat and looked back the way he came. "Is it just me, or are we more tilted than initially?"

Zelenka's head came up in earnest and he stared backwards toward the hatch. Shoving his glasses up his nose with his index finger, he slowly nodded. "I believe you are correct. The rear of this craft appears to be sinking."

John tilted his head as he ran through the possibilities, finally hazarding, "I'll bet that end is in the water." He stared at the ceiling as he did the geometry. "As we were flying up the coast, the ocean was to our right. We hit level, but as we slowed our back end started to come around on us. Therefore, the right side of the Jumper became our leading edge, burying it in sand, while our rear hatch would be the closest to the waves. If we were actually partially in the surf, it would explain the angle."

"How so?"

Sheppard smirked, then leaned back lacing his hands behind his head. "When I was a kid my Dad loved cars, the faster the better. We could never afford them, but it didn't keep Dad from dreaming. Anyway, we were on a road trip to Miami for one of his job interviews, and stopped for the night in Daytona Beach. He had heard about driving on the sand from one of his buddies, so he wanted to try it out. We raced up and down the section of beach where that was permitted for almost thirty minutes in his beat-up Pinto station wagon before he got tired of it." He chuckled at the memory. "The way the water sprayed as we drove along the edge of the ocean! It sometimes went up higher than the car. When he'd had enough, we parked the car in the surf and got out to play in the waves. Turns out, that was a mistake."

He shot Zelenka a chagrinned look. "When the waves come in, they liquefy the sand, kind of like quicksand. Anything sitting on top of this viscous liquid will sink. By the time we came back to the car, it was buried up to its axles." 

Radek was mesmerized. "So what did you do?"

"Well, a couple of 'good old boys' were driving along the beach in their pickup truck, looking for stupid tourists like us. They talked to my Dad for a couple of minutes, then hooked up this huge chain to the back of the wagon. They climbed back into their truck, gunned the engine, dropped the clutch, and yanked us out of there as pretty as you please. Dad gave them a twenty to buy some beer, and off they went!"

Radek looked anxiously at the rear of the craft. "I think that we will need a very large pickup truck."

Sheppard swung around to his console. "Nah, just another Jumper. We just have to wait for them to find us."

"Then the sand is keeping us from opening the rear hatch." The engineer continued to stare backwards.

"Yeah, probably. Look, don't worry about it; we have plenty of food and water, the CO2 scrubbers are working, the power is on…not only could we stay here for several days, but we can do it in relative comfort." Sheppard was busily typing information into the front control panel. His eyes narrowed as he studied the results.

Zelenka sighed and returned to his computer. "I suppose so. But I am concerned that something might have happened on Atlantis to prevent their searching for us."

Sheppard shot him a sharp look. "How do you mean?"

"I have been analyzing the crash data and comparing it to the limited information we have on Jumper 6's accident." Mentally he again cursed the loss of McKay's onboard laptop. "In reviewing Rodney's report, and correlating it to the data from the command center when they disappeared," he took a deep breath, then plunged ahead, "Not only did we experience precisely the same malfunction, but at the exact same flight time." 

Sheppard was out of his seat in an instant, peering over the engineer's shoulder. "May I look at that?" he asked, hand outstretched towards the Dell.

Radek blinked a moment, then nodded, pushing the computer toward the colonel. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead to try and mitigate his pounding headache as John reviewed the data.

Sheppard quickly scanned the information, then looked up grimly. "You might be onto something. Could be that Goa'uld sabotaged more than just the Base computers."

A new thought occurred to the Czech, and he reached for his Inspiron. "If I may?" he asked, retrieving it. "Each time the Daedalus comes to Atlantis from Earth, we routinely download the newest security patches from Microsoft. Caldwell knows this, and therefore the Goa'uld would have known it as well. It could have planted a rider code that would have downloaded with the software."

Sheppard squinted an eye shut consideringly. "OK, two questions. First, why would it care about sabotaging the Jumpers? Second, why do we download patches against Earth computer viruses anyway?"

"It would try to prevent the escape of any of our personnel using these vehicles. Evacuees to the Daedalus it would have direct control over; the Jumpers could not be so easily tracked." The engineer then smiled. "As far as the patches go; it was actually the cause of a heated debate in the science department. Ultimately, given the regular communication we have with Earth, it was determined to be in our best interests to protect against Earth computer viruses." 

"So if someone planted a code to crash a Jumper…"

"It would be transmitted via this computer."

"Well, see if you can find the problem and bypass it. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can do about getting us out of here. We'd better assume that we're on our own for the time being." Sheppard turned back to his board with determination.

\----------------------------

It started raining just as the rescue team disembarked. Squinting up at the sky, Rodney complained bitterly, "Oh, this is just swell. Why don't you give me pneumonia while you're at it?" He shook a fist towards the clouds.

"Doctor McKay, it's just a light sprinkle. We'll check out the area and be back inside before you can get your feet wet." Lorne was beginning to wonder if he had somehow angered Dr. Weir to cause her to assign Rodney to this mission with him. "I'm going to have to stop trashing Jumpers," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm sorry, did you say something Major?" McKay came trudging up behind him.

"Oh, just talking to myself. Where is the end of that deposit you found?"

McKay consulted his handheld device, then pointed towards the right and towards the ocean. "Over there, about three hundred yards."

Shouldering his pack, Lorne said, "Let's go."

By the time they got to the search zone, it was raining in earnest. With nothing immediately obvious, they began trudging a search pattern so as not to miss a possibly-cloaked Jumper. After an hour and a half, however, it became evident that the vehicle was not at this site, so they headed back to their craft, soaked to the skin.

"I haven't been this cold and wet since….oh, last week!" snarled Rodney, shaking off as he entered the rear hatch.

"Well, at least you're safe. We have no clue how Sheppard and Zelenka are doing," Lorne snapped in reply. He had pretty much had it with Dr. McKay, and was a hair's breadth from telling him so.

"It's getting dark soon. We aren't going to be able to see anything anyway."

"Then we'd best hurry and get to the other site, hadn't we?" gritted the pilot, initializing the engines.

\----------------------------------

"All right, try it now." Zelenka was precariously balanced on one leg and a makeshift crutch in front of the side panel he had been working on when they crashed. He had finally given up the laptop as a hopeless case, determining to debug it once they returned to Atlantis. Instead, he had gone back to manually bypassing the interface.

"Not until you're sitting down." Sheppard was adamant. He wasn't going to let the Czech get hurt a second time.

Hobbling the few feet forward, Radek slipped just as he reached the copilot's seat, and avoided falling only by the strength of the hand that suddenly appeared beneath his elbow. The tilt of the decking had become steeper in the past several hours, although at the current rate it would be days before they were completely vertical, if that was even possible. Nevertheless, this combined with his ankle made walking quite challenging.

"You OK, Dr. Z?" 

"Yes, fine. I still do not understand how this will work if we cannot make the pods deploy."

"Did you ever drive a clutch car?" Sheppard asked, beginning the startup sequence.

"Yes, of course. Automatic transmission was 'luxury item'."

"Well, just imagine this as 'first gear' as we 'feather the clutch'. Then we'll drop it and see if we can pop free. We won't go far, but at least we'll be on dry land." Sheppard sounded supremely confident in his plan. Zelenka glanced at him dubiously.

Sheppard flicked the final switches and grasped the controls. "Ready?" he smirked. "Here we go!"

Radek scrunched his eyes closed and held on for dear life.

\--------------------

"Hey, do you see that?" McKay asked as Lorne was beginning to land the Jumper. "Take a swing over there!" He had seen a brief reflection of their running lights on something that looked suspiciously like glass, buried in a sand mound several hundred yards from where they were alighting. If it was indeed the lost Jumper, Rodney wanted to minimize his exposure to the elements as much as possible. The rain was, if anything, even harder than before, and he was still chilled from their earlier search.

While the Major was hardly an advocate for the health benefits of trudging through pouring rain, he was a staunch opponent of listening to McKay complain about trudging through pouring rain. If they could set down close to their target, so much the better. "Where?" he asked, trying to make out details through the downpour.

McKay gestured to the pilot's left. "Eleven o'clock, about two hundred yards. I may have spotted the Jumper's windshield."

Lorne nodded, heading to the indicated trajectory and keeping a sharp lookout for any signs of the craft.

"There! You see it?" McKay gesticulated wildly.

He did. Only the left forequarter of the shuttle was visible, projecting out at an odd angle. "It looks like they are more than three-quarters buried in the sand. No wonder we couldn't spot them from altitude." He slowed the Jumper to a near-crawl as he came in for a landing, attempting to set down as close as possible to the other vehicle. McKay resumed the copilot's chair in preparation for touchdown.

Just then, the crashed ship exploded out of its enveloping sand like a cork from a bottle of shaken champagne, and headed straight for them.

"Oh, shit!" cried the Major, wrenching the controls so hard to the right that the Jumper was almost on its side. McKay, unprepared for such a maneuver, was hurled from his seat onto the decking. Skidding into the bulkhead behind his chair, he managed to grab hold of the bottom edge of the secondary station and hang on.

Sheppard's ship had the same reaction, veering hard to its right as well. At first it appeared that they might clear each other by millimeters, the left side of the crashed Jumper passing just below the underside of the rescue craft, but that hope was dashed when the horrible wrenching sound of tearing metal reverberated through both vehicles. Part of the left drive pod of the lower Jumper tore away, exposing the workings of the pod in an explosive flash of energy. The process gouged the underside of the rescue ship as well, but no actual pieces fell away. Sheppard immediately lost any semblance of control he might have had, struggling to keep the vehicle in a vaguely upright position. Lorne kept his vessel level all the way down, executing a perfect four-point landing, but at teeth-rattling speed. It felt as if they were going to go through the beach. His body was thrown forward by the jolt of impact, and he struck his head on the console in front of him. He let his head rest there for a minute, thinking, 'I'm alive' in disbelief, followed rapidly by, 'I can't believe I've crashed another Jumper! Weir will kill me.'

Once the shaking abated, he sat upright, touched a finger to the rising lump on his forehead and muttered, "These things ought to be equipped with airbags." Confirming that he was otherwise unharmed, he called out, "Hey, Doctor McKay, are you all right?"

Rodney groaned as he pulled himself out of the corner he'd ended up in. "I think so, no thanks to you. Where'd you learn to fly, some aeronautical demolition derby?" He put a hand to his lower back, stretching. "Now even my bruises have bruises."

Major Lorne ignored him, being more interested in the fate of the other craft. 'A complaining Doctor McKay is a healthy Doctor McKay', Sheppard had once confided, so he dismissed his earlier concerns about the physicist's health and slapped the panel to open the rear hatch. He was greeted by a deluge; in all the excitement he had forgotten the storm. No help for it; pulling the brim of his hat down on his forehead to keep the majority of the precipitation out of his eyes, he headed outside.

"Hey, what are you doing?" cried McKay after him. "That's a monsoon out there!" The Major didn't alter his course, making straight for the other downed Jumper which could barely be seen in the fading light, about 500 yards away.

"Oh, for crying out loud…." McKay shook his head then hurried after him.

The other Puddle Jumper was seriously worse for the wear, and the soldier let out a low whistle as he squinted at it in the cloud-covered twilight. Sheppard had clearly not had as much control over his trajectory as he would have liked, and the ship ended up halfway onto its left side, propped up at a 45-degree angle by a large sand dune. No light emanated from within, and pounding on the back hatch produced no response. Night was falling rapidly, and he wanted to get everyone in one place as soon as possible.

"Lt. Colonel Sheppard! Doctor Zelenka! Can you hear me?" The Major pounded again just as the dripping McKay arrived.

"Here, let me," said the scientist, elbowing him out of the way. "After my little experience last week, it occurred to me that it was inefficient of the Ancients to allow the occupants of a crashed ship to be the only ones able to access the craft." He palpated the edge of the door until, with a pleased exclamation, he sprung open a previously hidden panel and reached inside. "Likewise, they wouldn't want the Wraith to be able to get at the occupants while they were helpless or unconscious, so they had to make the release difficult to find and activate. So I looked it up in the database." The scientist grunted as he performed some complicated maneuvers inside the panel. The hatch suddenly hissed and swung open. "There we go," he concluded in satisfaction, smiling at his handiwork.

Major Lorne pushed past him and moved into the darkened vehicle. Walking was awkward due tilt of the floor and the decreased light, so he paused for a moment to allow his eyes to acclimate to the dimness.

"Don't thank me or anything," objected Rodney as he was pushed aside. When the Major didn't reply, he followed him in with an indignant air.

The soldier carefully made his way to the pilot's seat, knowing that Sheppard would be nearby. Amazingly enough, Sheppard was still seated, slumped unconscious over the control panel. "Colonel, wake up." Lorne shook his shoulder in an attempt to rouse him, which was partially successful.

Sheppard groaned and raised his head a few inches. The younger man could see a bandage on his forehead which was now blood-soaked. "Colonel, you're hurt. Let me help you sit up." So saying, he supported him from the front, easing him upright. 

Sheppard let his head loll backwards, the blinked his eyes open to stare at the ceiling. "This is getting to be a bad habit," he muttered unhappily.

Lorne grinned at the comment, relieved to find his superior battered but not broken. "Yes, sir. I was considering having the engineering department install airbags."

"Good plan," answered the injured man, bringing his head upright. "How's Zelenka?"

"He's out cold," came the reply from behind them. Sheppard carefully swiveled around to look in the direction of the voice.

"McKay?" he asked. "What are you doing here? I thought you were still on the injured roster."

"Tell that to Elizabeth," groused the scientist. "Seriously, Radek has a lump the size of an egg here."

In the failing light the two soldiers could see the hunched form of Rodney McKay kneeling on the floor next to his motionless colleague. Lorne moved over to crouch across from him as Rodney gently slapped the engineer's cheeks. After a few moments to get his balance and let the world stop spinning, Sheppard trailed haltingly behind. 

"Come on, Radek, speak to me," the physicist demanded.

Zelenka remained limp and unresponsive. The Major glanced up to where a white-faced Sheppard was leaning on the edge of a chair for support, then looked intensely at McKay. "We need to get them over to the other shuttle where we have at least some systems operational. I can carry Dr. Zelenka if you can make certain LTC Sheppard gets there.

Rodney glanced over his shoulder at the pilot, who looked even more pale than before, then turned back to Lorne and nodded. Standing, the scientist draped John's unprotesting arm over his own shoulders, then snaked his own around the injured man's waist.

Sheppard smirked at him foggily. "Why Rodney, I didn't know you cared; what ever happened to dinner and a movie?," he quipped.

"We're going to the other shuttle; do try not to throw up or pass out on me."

Sheppard gulped and considered. "I will try," he finally concluded dubiously. Even though it was hours ago, the sandwich he'd eaten just prior to take-off was threatening to revisit. He forcibly pushed down the nausea and said, "Let's do it."

The Major hefted the limp engineer and draped him over his shoulder, wishing not for the first time that he had Ronan Dex's bulk. Leaning to offset the weight as well as navigate the floor was tricky, but he made it to the door. To his dismay, it was still pouring; the light was almost gone, though, so he couldn't afford to wait for a lull in the storm. Lowering his head into the wind, he made a beeline for his Jumper.

Sheppard didn't complain about the torrent; he was too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other without blacking out. Rodney, however, took the opportunity to glare up at the heavens and yell, "You really have it in for me lately, don't you?" before concentrating on assisting the shaky pilot.

The four sodden, bedraggled explorers reached their destination after a seeming eternity. Major Lorne gently lowered Radek to one bench seat in the rear compartment before turning to help Rodney. Between the two of them they manipulated the nearly-unconscious CMO onto the opposite couch. McKay began toweling them off and covering them in blankets as Lorne checked in with Weir.  
\----  
"Doctor Weir, this is Major Lorne."

"Good to hear from you. Any luck finding our people?" 

Lorne glanced at his passengers. Sheppard was now sitting propped up on his elbows staring at him with a bemused expression, while McKay was tending a now-moaning engineer. "Um, yeah. We ran into them." Sheppard smirked.

"What's your ETA?"

"I'm afraid that might be a problem. You see, we kind of crashed…"

Instead of the explosion he half-expected, there was a concerned query, "Are you and Dr. McKay all right?"

"Yes ma'am." He glanced at Sheppard, who was gesturing for him to hand over the radio. "Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard would like to speak to you."

"Good. Put him on."

Lorne handed over the earpiece. "Elizabeth?"

"Colonel Sheppard. How are you feeling?"

"Killer headache, otherwise all right." He winced slightly as he thought about it.

"We'll send another Jumper out to pick you up. You'll be back here in no time."

"Actually, that's not such a good idea." 

"What do you mean?" Dr. Weir was understandably confused.

"Radek believes the Jumpers have been sabotaged, and that it has something to do with our Earth computers. It seems both Griffin's ship and ours crashed due to the same malfunction at the exact same flight time."

"That does sound suspicious. What about Lorne's?"

Sheppard grimaced. "I sorta…sideswiped them. We haven't had a chance to check how much damage was done."

A pause. "I see. Do whatever diagnostics you need to, then get back to us; if you can't fly here, we'll have to come to you, risky or not."

Weir signed off and Sheppard shrugged and began to get up.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked McKay, still dripping from the storm, swinging round to address him.

"You heard Elizabeth. We need to…"

His reply was cut off by the Major, who said, "I can run the systems check. You just lay down and rest a minute."

John had to admit that the thought was appealing, and he was beginning to warm up under the blankets. Still…"Two people might do it faster."

"Not really, and you know it. Just relax. The sooner I get started, the sooner I'll finish." Lorne fixed his superior with a 'you know I'm right' stare, and Sheppard smiled. 

"I guess I've crashed enough Jumpers for one day. OK, I'll play invalid. But call if you need my help!" 

"Will do, sir." With that, Lorne turned and made his way to the cockpit.

Just then Zelenka's eyes squinted open, and he blinked at the face floating above him. "Rodney? What are you doing here? Were you in the Jumper we hit?"

"Yes, and now you are, too. Trust me, it's in lots better shape than yours!" He replaced the cold pack that had slipped off the Czech's forehead.

Radek's eyes widened as he recalled the accidents. "Rodney, the Jumpers…they both crashed due to the right drive pod…"

"Yes, yes. Sheppard's told us your theory," he replied testily. "No other Jumpers are launching until this is all cleared up."

"I think the Goa'uld may have downloaded its program with the new security patches; we need to start looking in the…"

"Diagnostics program, I know," interrupted McKay. "I was also going to analyze the patches themselves to see if there was code hidden within them."

Zelenka fixed him with a stare. "Then you believe that my theory has validity?"

McKay shrugged. "It's certainly reasonable, given the nature of the two crashes."

"Then you no longer believe that my team's sloppiness was the cause of your ordeal?" he persisted.

Rodney fidgeted a moment before admitting, "No…no your team was adequate."

Zelenka's stare took on an added sharpness. "So, then, your haranguing will cease?" 

"I never 'harangued' anybody!," McKay objected.

Zelenka raised one eyebrow, but said nothing as he continued to stare at the physicist with steely eyes. After a minute, Rodney shifted uncomfortably. A minute more, and he threw his arms apart and exploded, "OK, OK, I'll stop haranguing! Happy?"

Radek sighed and relaxed back onto his pillow, allowing his eyes to slide shut. "Completely," he answered, then drifted into a doze.

A snort from the other bench reminded McKay that they were not alone. Turning around to Sheppard, he snapped, "Oh, you think that's funny, do you? Just remember, I still have to change your bandage!" He pointed at the bloody one adorning the pilot's forehead.

Sheppard smirked. "Nah, just toss me the medikit; I can do it myself." Rodney scowled, then threw the requested item to the LTC, with a little more force than absolutely necessary. John snagged it like a football, grinning even wider as he opened it up and took out the supplies he needed.

Just then the Major returned. "Amazing but true, according to my readings you managed to gouge this Jumper's bodywork, but not much else. It's not pretty, but it's perfectly safe to fly home. Your Jumper, on the other hand, is going nowhere. I can see bits of drive pod strewn down the beach for half a mile!"

That roused Doctor Zelenka. Blearily he sat and looked in the direction of the pilot, then insisted, "Under no circumstances should you hook up any of our laptops to the control panels, or this flight will be very brief."

"I hadn't planned to. It's kind of hard to pilot the ship and play with a computer at the same time. I sure could use another set of eyes up front, though." The Major looked expectantly at McKay, who was the most mobile of the three passengers.

Sheppard watched as all the color drained from Rodney's face, then began levering himself off the couch. "I'll do it," he volunteered, wincing as his muscles protested the movement.

Lorne looked at his superior questioningly. "Are you sure you're up to it?"

Sheppard shrugged. "Yeah, I'm good. You'd better check in with Weir before we take off." 

Lorne realized that his superior felt far from well, but he had also seen Rodney's terror at riding shotgun in a potentially damaged Jumper. Of the two, he'd take the experienced but concussed pilot hands down, so he didn't argue. "Will do," he replied, helping John into the copilot's seat.

As the two soldiers reported back to Atlantis, Zelenka, who had also seen McKay blanche, addressed him. "Rodney, would you mind giving me a hand up?" he asked. McKay turned blank eyes towards him, then shook himself and nodded once, curtly.

Within minutes Radek was sitting on the bench holding his head. "Are you certain you wouldn't rather lie down?" asked McKay dubiously.

"No. But I would like you to hand me that laptop and help me look through that code. I tried to do it myself in the other ship, but…" he shrugged and gestured to the knot on his head.

Rodney sat next to him, glad to discuss anything other than their impending takeoff. "I thought you got that from when you plowed into us."

"Colonel Sheppard plowed into you; I was only along for the ride. And one of the reasons it is so large is that I was knocked unconscious twice."

"Oh." McKay was uncertain as to what else to say. Opening up the Dell, he booted it up and asked, "So what did you look at already?" Within minutes they were so immersed in analyzing the programs that they didn't even notice when the Jumper became airborne.

Sheppard glanced back at the pair who, for the first time since they'd rescued McKay from the bottom of the ocean, seemed to be acting like friends again. He turned back to the windshield where, though the night's darkness, he could see the lights of Atlantis shining.

The flight was surprisingly uneventful, and the group was met in the Jumper Bay by not only Dr. Beckett and company, but also by a relieved Dr. Weir. Given the nature of the last dual crash, Carson insisted that everyone involved undergo a thorough check-up. Afterwards, Lorne and McKay were released, while Sheppard and Zelenka were kept overnight for observation. Somehow the physician was unsurprised to find Radek and Rodney deeply immersed in an argument about computer virus software at his two a.m. neuro check. 

"Och, now, let the lad sleep!" he exclaimed, trying to confiscate Rodney's computer.

McKay kept it out of his reach. "You're the one who wakes him up every two hours to ask a bunch of inane questions. Don't forget, I was on the receiving end of this routine just a few days ago."

Beckett gave him a no nonsense look. "If you don't want to be on it again, you'll leave quietly. You can have your playmate back in the morning."

McKay looked prepared to argue the point, when a soft snore emanated from Radek's bed. "You see there? He's exhausted." Beckett grabbed a protesting Rodney by the arm and ushered him to the door. "Go!" 

Reluctantly Rodney went, but not without a promise to return in the morning. Beckett went over to where Zelenka lay snoring and chuckled. "He's gone, lad. You can stop pretending."

Radek cracked open one eye and looked at the doctor sheepishly. "How did you know?"

"I'll answer your question if you answer mine; why did you pretend to be asleep?" Carson crossed his arms expectantly.

The answer was immediate and apologetic. "I really would like to get some sleep, and with the noise you two were making I was afraid that you'd wake up LTC Sheppard." He gestured to the next bed, where the pilot lay on his back, breathing quietly.

The physician's smile widened. "But he isn't asleep, either." He turned to Sheppard, "Are ye now?"

This time the pilot opened his eyes and looked sheepish. "No, I'm not. But I'm with Zelenka on this; how did you know?"

Carson just shook his head and clucked. "I know the sleeping habits of all my 'regulars'. You, sir," he pointed to Radek, "do not snore. And you," he pointed to Sheppard, "snore like a chainsaw." Still chuckling, he returned to his cot on the far end of the room and reset it for two more hours.

After they were released the next morning, Radek joined McKay for an early breakfast then headed off to the Jumper Bay to run tests integrating the laptops and their diagnostic test-flight programs into the circuitry of a non-airborne Jumper.

"I believe it is a problem in the scan of the tertiary systems." Radek's glasses were almost to the end of his nose as he concentrated on the screen in front of him.

"Yes, here…" Rodney pointed at a particular line of code. "When this goes through the Ancient translation program, then feeds back and is uploaded into the Jumper's drive systems…"

"The results from the tertiary back-up exhaust system of the right drive pod return to the diagnostic program…." Radek verbally described the computer events.

Rodney glanced at their simulated 'mission clock', "Almost to the problem point…three…two….one…"

The screen suddenly began spew streams of gibberish and refused to respond to commands, followed by 'the blue screen of death'.

Zelenka sat back with a sigh. "That must be it."

Rodney shook his head. "They're never going to believe this. Even I don't believe it, and I just watched it!"

"We're going to have to reinstall the operating systems of every computer on base," Radek groaned, putting a hand to his already-pounding forehead.

"Even worse…" McKay began, then trailed off.

Zelenka lowered his hand and looked at the other man. "What?"

"We're going to have to tell Elizabeth."

Radek groaned and buried his face in his hands.

\--------------------

Later, in Weir's office, the pair held a meeting to explain the problem.

"So, the Goa'uld had nothing to do with this?" asked Elizabeth skeptically.

"No, it was something far more dangerous and infinitely more insidious; it was Windows." McKay shook his head.

"I'm sorry?"

McKay tried to explain: "Think of it like this: have you ever downloaded a Microsoft security patch, only to have Windows suddenly lock up the computer?"

"Yes…" Weir was dubious.

Zelenka took up the explanation. "One of the patches we recently downloaded picks up the control subroutine of a functioning tertiary exhaust valve on the right drive pod as spyware and quarantines it, causing the engine to malfunction. The resulting feedback loop locks up the computer."

Sheppard's eyebrow climbed to his hairline as he slowly summarized, "So you're saying…Bill Gates crashed our jumpers?!?"

The two scientists smiled in unison and chorused, "Precisely!"

Elizabeth buried her face in her hands. "How am I going to put this in a mission report?" she sighed. Looking up, she continued, "Rodney, I need your report on my desk in the morning. In the meantime, do what you have to do to keep our ships safe."

As the group rose to leave, she stood and added, "Oh Rodney, don't you have something to say to Dr. Zelenka?"

"No, not that I can think of. Why?" McKay looked truly confused.

"Remember our conversation just before the test flight of the Jumper you supervised repairs on?" she hinted.

McKay looked sheepish. "Oh, yeah. That."

"Well?" she prodded.

"RadekI'msorryIthoughtyourrepairsweresloppyandit'llneverhappenagain," he mumbled hurriedly. He looked up defiantly at that point, as if daring anyone in the room to try and make him repeat it.

Sheppard blinked in surprise. "Did I just hear what I think I heard?"

Radek grinned, "Yes, you did. Apology accepted. Thank you."

McKay spread his arms in exasperation, "Can we get on with our jobs, now? It's going to be a long day."

"Dismissed," Weir was wearing a smile of her own.

As Radek and Rodney exited, McKay asked, "What is it about the women I meet? They all claim that I'm 'petty, arrogant, and treat people badly', then they want me to change."

Zelenka shrugged. "I do not know. It is a shame that we cannot reinstall operating system in women."

McKay smiled ruefully. "You're right. They might make more sense in Linux." He sighed. "We've got to confiscate on every computer on base."

"There will be a lot of unhappy people." Radek replied dejectedly.

A thought suddenly occurred to the two men, who exchanged a cheerful glance, then strode side-by-side down the corridor arguing over who would get to appropriate Kavanagh's laptop for the reinstall.

The End


End file.
